A complex nest of cables encircles Peter Glaessel, a technical coordinator of the TPC (time projection chamber). The TPC's multiple layers of particle detectors are part of ALICE (a large ion collider experiment), one of six experiments planned at the LHC.

The world's largest solenoid magnet will fit inside a steel cylinder at the heart of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS). CMS and three other main detectors housed in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) may reveal unknown subatomic particles.

An engineer works on one of more than a thousand magnets that will steer particles toward collision. The collider's innards include pipes for the particle beams and liquid-helium-filled pipes that will cool the magnets to minus 456ºF (minus 271ºC), so they can carry more electric current and exert greater force.

Slowly, carefully, a million-dollar superconducting magnet is lowered 300 feet (90 meters) into the particle collider. The product of a decade of designing and manufacture, this magnet and similar ones, each weighing up to 19 tons, will be deployed to focus particle beams at the point of collision, with a goal of 600 million impacts per second.

Glistening with sensors, components of the CMS detector near completion for a start-up later this year. As protons collide, detectors will track a flood of data that could yield evidence of elusive particles that physicists seek.